


Spun Lace

by B_does_the_write_thing



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Choose Your Own Ending, Creating new ships be like, F/M, you're going to suffer but you're going to be happy about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 16:19:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4228599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/B_does_the_write_thing/pseuds/B_does_the_write_thing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the spinner Rumpelstiltskin goes to Port to find his wife, he instead meets Lacey, a barmaid who changes his life. Spinnner!Rum, EnchantedForest!Lacey, MILD AU,</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I need you all to blame PrissyGirl for this. 
> 
> Spinner!Rum gets more than he bargained for when he meets Lacey the barmaid. (Oops, I just made a new ship!)

The first lesson Lacey learned at the hands of fate was simple: life isn’t fair. 

Born to a farmer who had more heart than brains, she learned early what it was to be hungry. With crows in their garden and rabbit out in the fields, her father barely kept his crops alive until harvest. Even if they made it to the reaping, he was well known as a soft touch. Everyone from the needy to the manipulative knew Farmer Moe’s house at the fork in the road. 

Everyone also knew the Farmer’s daughter. From the time she was a babe in the arms of her gentle giant father to the time she was in pigtails under the table, people always noticed Lacey. 

“She’s a beauty,” the locals would croon as they helped themselves to a third serving.

“She’s a smart one, she is,” the travelers would praise while they helped themselves the silver by the fireplace.

“What a good girl,” the priests would burp as they helped themselves to another glass of ale. 

And her father stood nodding proudly, even as the blue eyes of his daughter narrowed and her stomach gurgled as the last of the month’s food disappeared down a stranger’s gullet. 

Time passed. 

After fourteen summers, the farmhouse grew more and more in disrepair as the Farmer and his daughter struggled to put food on their table. The crops withered and died as the ogre war advanced ever closer. Thieves and rogues stopped knocking at the door, opting to kick it in instead. 

Now, when people saw the Farmer’s daughter, they were less kind.

“She’s a beauty,” the men panted as they wiped their hands along their trousers, watching as she bent over the dried up well. 

“Think’s she so smart that one,” the women gossiped, avoiding her gaze when she came into town to trade. 

“Be a good girl,” her father whispered, as he lay in his bed, delirious with fever. 

When he passed, the village came like flies to the farmhouse, eager to claim their debts and see the beautiful girl brought low in her misfortune. Instead, they found a freshly dug grave, a shovel with blood on the handle, a wooden tombstone and an empty house. 

\--

“Hey! Beggar! What you doing out here?”

In the light of the lantern swinging over the Pirate’s Purse doorway, Lacey watched the small man spin about in a comical whirling of limbs and rags. Raising her kitchen knife at him, she fixed him with her darkest glare. 

“Best be getting along,” she directed. The light of the lantern danced off the blade’s edge as it slashed across his face. “Pirates don’t take kind to beggars.”

Dirty hands rose up from the burlap rags, long trembling fingers supplicating even as he opened his mouth to stutter, “I wasn’t- I was just- my wife- she’s-“

The butcher knife dropped back to Lacey’s side as she sighed in realization. “Shit. Look, if she’s been stolen, you need to go find the lawmen.” She gestured at him with the knife, taking in the slight bony form underneath the rags and the thin lines creasing his face. “Don’t try to be a hero. You’d be dead before you got a solid sentence out.”

Still shaking, the little man pushed his dirty hair out his face as he glanced back into the brightly lit window. She watched his fearful expression solidify into something more certain before it met her gaze and shattered back into doubt. “But- but my son…“

“I don’t want to hear it,” Lacey interrupted, turning back into the smoky tavern hall. “You better be gone by the time I leave, you understand? Or I’ll call the lawmen myself.”

Jerky nods signaled his agreement. Lacey nodded solemnly in return before she pushed the door back open and disappeared inside. Smalls caught her eye from over the bar and she nodded discreetly before she gathered the next round of beer from the bar.

“Take care of the riffraff?” He asked her lowly, careful so the drunks at the bar didn’t overhear. 

“Just another desperate soul,” Lacey replied, smiling wickedly towards an interested party as she bent down to fill up the mugs. Smalls grunted at her reply.

“By the by, Jones is back. Got a filly with him,” Beady brown eyes flickered towards the back corner where the pirate rogue was holding court, boots up on the table as he lorded over his flock of rats. “Looks like trouble so watch yourself.”

Almost as if his words were a prophecy, Lacey heard the bells ringing over the door announcing a newcomer. Turning, Lacey found to her surprise, the little man from outside had limped in on a staff, drawing his rags around him as if for support. 

“Shit,” Lacey muttered, letting her hand fall down to the knife in her apron pocket. Smalls noticed and he laid one meaty hand on the large musket under the bar, eyes narrowed as he surveyed the room.

No one seemed to notice the stranger. He blended in with the walls and floor almost as if he was a ghost. Still, Lacey noticed a few of the sharks take him in, looking him over with their half closed eyes. 

“Lacey, me pet,” came the slurred voice of one of her regulars. “Give ole Beau a kiss and a scotch, won’t ya?”

Lacey batted away his hand, keeping the small man in her sights as he neared the center of the room, bathed in the firelight of the large roasting mantle. “Not now, you codger,” she replied, pushing the requested ale his way and ignoring his outraged cry when it splashed against his arm. 

A moment’s hesitation, and then the small man’s back was to her as he approached Jones and his clique. “Fuck,” she heard Smalls groan, and the almost inaudible click of the musket announced he shared her concern. Jones was a thug, a pretty boy hyped up on his own success and his legend- mostly built on the backs of his men and his stolen ship’s speed. That and an approach to life that included absolutely zero rules and a tendency to cheat. 

The next five minutes felt like the longest of the night. Keeping one eye on the man’s back, another on Jones best mate Smee, who looked gleeful at the exchange and an occasional glance towards the shadowy figure that had to be the wife, Lacey barely noticed she had spilled beer onto the floor until an outraged noise from Steel Toe Dan stirred her back to her senses. 

And somehow, in the time it took for her to clean up the spill, when she looked back up, the small man was gone. Jones and his crew were laughing uproariously and calling for another round. Smalls went back to pouring beer, giving her a small nod of relief at the close call. 

Still, for some reason, when Lacey turned back to her tasks, she couldn’t help but think about the brave little coward.  
\--

Pulling the door to behind her, Lacey stifled a yawn as the sun began a slow rise over the ocean behind her. After a long night, Smalls had gone up to his quarters, leaving her the pleasure of cleaning out the slop bucket. 

“Disgusting,” Lacey grumbled, holding the stew of human waste as far away from here as possible. She stumbled towards the water’s edge, keeping an eye out for any shark or pickpocket who might still be roaming the street. 

Instead, as she turned back from disposing the mess in the drink, she spotted a heap of rags piled by the pier’s underpass. She stilled, raising a hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the rising sun. Peering out over the sand, Lacey studied the pile as she strained to listen over the morning tide and the cries of the seagulls. No stranger to death and violence, Lacey knew a body when she saw one. But this was a small one, either a woman or a child from the looks of it.

With a quick glance towards the Pirate’s Purse, Lacey lowered the bucket back to the sand. Reaching into her pocket for her knife, she began a slow approach towards the rags. 

Swallowing the lump in her throat, she stopped a few feet from the shadow of the pier. The rags had blood on them, dark splotches that were almost dry now. The sand around the body showed someone had dragged it here, leaving it for dead. 

There was also a familiar wooden staff beside the body, tip stained with blood.

“You idiot,” Lacey whispered, tucking her knife back into her pocket. “I warned you…”

“Milah?” came the unexpected ragged response. Lacey barely heard it over the waves but she found herself suddenly kneeling beside the man, hands gently rolling him over unto his back. 

“Quiet,” she hissed at him as he moaned out at the shift. “If they left a look out, he’ll cut both our throats just for the pleasure of watching us bleed!”

Another moan, stifled but still audible followed causing Lacey to roll her eyes. She pushed back the heavy burlap rags around his shoulders, revealing a wiry and slightly more solid frame than his lean face had suggested. His face was a patchwork of bruises and cuts, with one eye swelled shut and the other flickering faintly as the sun started to move towards them. 

“Couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?” Lacey berated him, gingerly pressing along his arms and chest to see if anything was broken. A faint moan and a sharp intake of breath were the only other noises he made before his eyes rolled back in his head. With a sigh, Lacey sat back on her heels. She used her wrist to push her hair out of her face she weighed her options. 

\--

“He’s at death’s door,” Smalls complained, standing over the unconscious man with his arms folded over his chest. “What do you expect me to do about it?”

“For starters, you could help me pick him up,” Lacey prompted. She stood beside her rotund boss, throwing furtive looks over her shoulder. Any minute the traders would swarm the pier for the day’s market. If they were still out here with a beaten man, the lawmen would come sniffing about.

Smalls shot her an incredulous look, raising one meaty eyebrow at her in silent commentary. She gestured towards the idiot’s feet, miming picking him up and throwing him over her shoulder. 

“He’s all bloody,” Smalls groused, unmoved. 

“Oh for the love of Ursula,” Lacey growled. “Fine, you get his arms and I’ll get his legs. Let’s just get him inside before one of the sharks sees us and rouses Jones crew.”

“Eh,” Smalls said, rubbing the back of his neck with a meaty paw. “We don’t need any trouble with Jones…”

Still, he moved towards the body, picking up the arms gingerly. The coward’s head lolled back comically as Lacey grabbed the feet, heisting him up despite her platform boots and the slipper sand. 

As the two made their way carefully over the quickly warming sand, Smalls caught her eye over the limp body and shook his head at her. “Never figured you for a soft touch, Lacey, old girl,” he told her. 

“Shut up and walk faster,” Lacey gritted out as she slid slide ways in the sand. “He reeks of manure.”

\--

His name was Rumplestitlskin. 

A poor spinner from the northlands, he had shattered his leg in the ogre war. Now, he had a few other scars to match the mangled scars and knots in that leg. Quiet and shy, he was prone to mumbling in his sleep and blushing when she changed his dressings. 

His wife Milah had gone to sea with Jones’s crew. From the reports that came back from the merchant ships, she had embraced pirating. Cruel and clever, she was quickly raising Jones and his crew from rabble-rousers to actual threats of the sea. Lacey never shared this with Rumplestitlskin; he was already too concerned about his infant son, Baelfire. 

Letting herself into the broom closet they had turned into the invalid’s room, Lacey was surprised to find the patient sitting up in bed, awake and alert. 

The warm brown eyes followed her as she set his plate down on the shelf beside him. He remained quiet as she poured the ale into the smaller glass he could hold without shaking, only offering a quiet nod of thanks when she handed it to him.

“Spit it out,” she finally ordered him, plopping down on the bed beside him. 

A wry smile, still hesitant formed on his bruised face. His split lip was healing nicely, she noticed when he surprised her with,“ I need to go home.”

Lacey laughed, taking a second cup from the shelf and pouring herself some of the ale. “Nice one, Rumple. Doc Whale says your ribs won’t heal unless you stay in bed and you’ve got at least two more months before you can ride a horse.”

“Bae needs me…” came the worried response. The spinner knotted his hands together, eyes avoiding hers in the meager light through the thin alley window. “Who knows what will happen to him if I’m not there-“

“Rum, listen to me,” Lacey interrupted, nudging his hip with her cup. “We sent the message to the village. Your aunts are watching him, he’s fine. You have to heal or you won’t make it back to him at all. Now, shut up and lay back down. You’re ruining my break.”

He did as she told him. But he didn’t say much the rest of the night and when she left, he looked more helpless than he had the night she had first met him. 

\--

Lacey knew men. She knew which ones wanted her to scream in pleasure and which ones wanted her to take control of them. She knew when a man was dangerous and when a man was just bullshitting. Her encounters with men varied from the first few times in the haystack with bumbling boys to near rapes on the road to the business transactions. She knew which would protect her and which would abandon her. 

But she never had met someone quite like Rumplestitlskin, the brave little coward.

So, sometime during his recovery at the Pirate’s Purse, Lacey realized she wanted him. Not to use for gain or to humiliate, not to win like a trophy or to distract herself from the hole in her chest, but a simpler desire. 

So, she enjoyed flirting with him. She slipped away to his broom closet for late evening chats over the books he found on his daily strength-building walk to the market. She took her meals with him by the fire, telling each other stories they overhead. He had even shown her how to spin on an old wheel Smalls had found in the attic. She enjoyed just spending time with him.

He was growing stronger, Doc Whale had told her. Ready to go home within the fortnight. 

But Lacey did not want him to go. She did not want to lose her chess companion or the way he smelled of pine underneath the musky smell of sweat. She did not want to lose the way his teeth nibbled at his apples like a horse or the way he limped with his back hunched but his chest thrown out. 

So, she did not tell him he was almost ready to go home. 

Instead, she bent over invitingly when he entered the room. She brushed past him in the corridors and nudged his foot under the table when they ate. She smiled at him in the way that blind men had been known to swoon for and she whispered suggestive comments into his ear when she brought him the dishes. 

And her little coward simply blushed and squeaked and avoided her gaze. 

Even now, as the tip of his nose reddened and his gaze fluttered to the floor, Lacey couldn’t help the disappointment in the pit of her stomach. She wanted a country spinner still very much in love with his wife. He had been cuckolded and beaten to an inch of his life and he still loved the heartless pirate queen.

And nothing in Lacey’s arsenal of seduction seemed to be able to change that. 

\--

Another month passed. Smalls took mercy on the spinner, letting him help out first in the few hours they were closed in the early mornings before agreeing to let him wash dishes during their evening rush. 

It was one morning as Lacey was cleaning the brass candlesticks as he swept that Rumplestitlskin surprised her with a question. 

“How did you end up here?”

“Seriously?” Lacey asked, not bothering to lift her gaze from the scorched table. “I told you already, born and bred in the alleys and gutters of Port.”

“Smalls told me you aren’t from here originally. I… I wondered how you came to be working…living here…” His face reddened as he tried to force the words out, blinking furiously as he moved the broom around in useless circles. 

“You mean, what’s a nice girl like me doing in a place like this?” Lacey teased him, standing slowly. She enjoyed the way his eyes followed her up, glancing down at her low cut dress before yanking his gaze back up to her face. “Easy. I wanted to find my mother when my father passed…’

“He used to tell me she went west, to the sea. Papa always talked of the sea, telling me stories of my mother’s love for the ocean,” Lacey’s voice softened as she remembered the nights when he had tucked her into bed with a kiss on the forehead. “I used to beg him to tell me about her…’

“’Blue Eyes’, he’d call me. ‘Your Ma had eyes like a raven’s feathers. When you opened those beautiful blue eyes up at us, me with my ole mud colored ones, I just knew your ma’s love for you had gotten mixed up with her love for the sea…’”

Lacey paused, swallowing the lump in her throat that welled up as she thought of her father’s gruff voice and calloused hands patting her hair. “Well,” she sniffed, trying to grab her control back before Rum saw her falter. “When I got to the sea, I learned it was a dirty brown. And my mother was probably just another dock whore who had died from the Sickness. And there I was, all of fourteen with no money, no idea what to do and no talent other than what was between my legs.”

The brushing of his broom intensified at that, white knuckles gripping tightly as he avoided her frank stare.

“Does that bother you?” Lacey provoked him. “Because it doesn’t bother me. I learned the ways of the birds and bees before I was eleven. What was it to me if I gave it out for free or if someone paid for it?”

She couldn’t see his face; his infernal endearing mass of gray brown hair hid his expression from her as neatly as if he had turned his back on her. Something hot prickled her chest and she found herself growing closer to him as she continued. 

“So, I found me a brothel- the cleanest one I could figure and I went to work,” Lacey paused, trying to avoid the laugh or sob that seemed to be clawing at her tongue. “And I learned that nothing in this life is for free,” she whispered, leaning into his back so she could rest her head on his shoulder. He smelled of sweat and smoke, but he was warm and firm despite the shaking of his shoulders. She nestled her face into his hair, breathing him in as her hands rose up to curl around his arms. 

“Stop.”

Lacey stilled. For a moment, she didn’t move but then, she peeled herself away with an indignant chuckle,” Just thought I’d show you how I got the name Racy Lacey. Don’t get your knickers all in a bunch, Rumple.”

She left him in the main hall, disappearing back to the storeroom where Smalls kept the spirits. She ignored the voice inside her head whispering she was a fool and uncapped the nearest bottle.

\--

“Fuck sakes, Lace, you’re sloshed.”

“Fuck you,” she hiccupped back hotly. The effect was only slightly marred by the way she was swaying on her feet, but if the room would just stop spinning, she’d be fine. Smalls sighed in response, lifting a hand to his brow as he glanced at the surging crowd.

“Better get upstairs and sleep it off,” he finally decided. “I’ll see if Marlene can spare Alice tonight.”

Lacey scoffed, raising the bottle to her lips. “Alice couldn’t find her ass if a man had his dick in it,” she muttered. 

He leveled three meaty fingers at her, blurring together as the candle he held flickered in the growing darkness. “Her wages tonight are coming out of yours,” he continued over her outraged shout. “And you should be on your knees thanking me that I’m not throwing your ass on the street or charging you for the bottles you drank.”

He plucked the half empty bottle out of her hand before he turned and disappeared past the swinging door of the kitchen. She heard some murmured discussion and then the chiming of the door alerted her to the start of the evening as she heaved herself up and out of the storeroom.

\--

The creak of the floorboard outside her door woke her. In the moment between sleep and alertness, her old instincts flooded her system with adrenaline. Heart beating madly, she threw herself out of the bed, rolling over and grabbing the large candelabra by her bedside and throwing the door open in one fluid movement.

Her attack plan ceased the minute the brown worried eyes of the spinner caught the light of his candle’s reflection off her brass weapon. 

“Rum!” She gasped, leaning against the doorframe for support. Her adrenaline ebbed away, leaving her shaking and slightly sick where she stood. “What in the five hells are you doing out here?”

He stuttered out something about being concerned, bringing her something to eat but Lacey didn’t hear him. She concentrated on standing upright, grasping the candelabra with one hand and the doorframe with the other.

She felt like a horse had kicked her. Her head was throbbing, her stomach rolling unpleasantly and she was dimly aware that she hadn’t bothered to throw a robe over her shift.

Sounding by the stuttering, Rumplestitlskin had just noticed it as well. 

“Just leave it at the door,” Lacey managed, turning to go back into the dark nest of her room. 

“Lacey?”

She stilled but did not turn around. He was a simple man but he wasn’t an idiot. She had come on to him and he had rejected her. Surely he knew when to leave a girl to lick her wounds in peace. 

“Goodnight, Rumplestitlskin,” she said softly as she let the door swing closed. As she got into bed, she closed her eyes and tried to block out the look of him in her doorway.

She didn’t hear the floorboard creak when he left over an hour later. 

\--

“Storm’s a brewing,” 

He practically jumped out of his seat, clattering the wheel to a stop as he whirled around to face her. 

“Lacey!” 

“In the flesh,” she teased, moving into the room without waiting for an invitation. Two months after Doc Whale had cleared the little man to head back to his home, he still sat by the window in the attic and spun when he felt homesick. 

It had taken an insane amount of courage for her to climb the steps. The early afternoon sky was already black with the summer storm, the air thick enough to cut with a knife. 

This room especially felt cloying; the humidity of the storm caused her dress to stick to her skin and her hair around her temples was wet with perspiration. Rum had thrown off his usual layers, opting for a simple white shirt and his worn breeches. One could barely see the bloodstains anymore.

“What are you doing up here?” He asked in confusion, hands mindlessly running the threat into the wheel. Grasping the question like a lifeline, Lacey lowered herself onto the nearest stool. It had been a few weeks since her bender in the storeroom and ever since, the two of them had indulged in a mutual understanding to avoid the other. 

But it was time to pay the piper. 

“You were making a racket,” Lacey found herself saying. She internally winced at her cowardice and opened her mouth to apologize. But she found he was smiling at her, the usual shyness replaced by a mischievous smirk that transformed her quiet spinner into a whole different person.

“That’s how you know you’re doing it right,” he replied blithely. “At least, that’s what a certain barmaid told me once.”

Lacey laughed at the reference to the time they had both stumbled onto a rather passionate couple in the storeroom a few months back. She had laughed at his shocked expression, claiming he knew nothing about lovemaking. 

“You got me there,” she agreed. “I know preachers who are less prudish than you, Rum.”

At the sound of his pet name, he smiled again. Lacey found herself warming in a way that had nothing to do with the heat wave. She batted the thought away. 

“I was lacking the right teacher according to Beau,” Rumple confided. “He said I needed a proper woman and not some village girl.”

“Yea, well, Beau’s never had a lay in his life that he didn’t pay for,” Lacey had to raise her voice slightly as Rum started to slowly start to pedal his wheel again. He seemed relaxed up here, free of his usual shyness and uncertainty. Instead, now she felt ill at ease, her body slow from the heat and her mind cloudy with guilt, a new emotion that didn’t sit well in her stomach.

“Look, Rum. I wanted to talk to you about something….”

The wheel ceased. A silence fell that was only briefly broken by the rumbling roar of thunder crashing over the horizon. Lacey refused to let herself fidget, sitting bolt upright. Rum was in reaching distance but his slumped shoulders and greying hair hid half of his face. In the meager light from the sky outside, she could barely make out his face from here. 

It was now or never then, she figured, steeling herself to tell him. She refused to wonder why she had waited weeks to tell him. She had told Smalls she enjoyed the extra help around the kitchen and that was true but it was no reason to keep this man from his son.

“I’ve been selfish,” she finally said. “These past few weeks, I should have said something but I-“

“I’ve been selfish too,” he interrupted quietly. The wheel creaked as he absently reached out his left hand, thick with callouses from the wheel to trace the wooden surface. 

“Rum,” she sighed impatiently. “I’m trying to tell you something-“

“And I’m trying to tell you I know.”

Staring back at him in apprehension, Lacey internally berated herself for not bringing a lantern. “How?”

“I’m not well practiced in these kinds of… things,” he said slowly. “And I didn’t think it was a good idea at first but-“

“Rum, I should have done this months ago.”

“You tried,” he said with a hopeless laugh. “And I froze.”

She stilled, blinking in confusion as she tried to make sense of what he was saying. If he knew, why hadn’t he left?

“I’m an old man,” he sighed, rubbing his hands together in his lap. Her eyes plummeted to them, drawn like those parrots were to shiny objects. His fingers, always long and elegant despite the dirty nails and callouses were intriguing when still but in motion, they were memorizing. “And you’re so beautiful-“

Oh.

“Rum,” Lacey’s heart started to beat uncomfortably fast in her chest. “Are you saying you want me?”

It was a tiny nod, almost imperceptible but it was enough. 

Standing, Lacey moved towards him. A bolt of lighting illuminated the room and for a moment, just for the one moment, everything was perfectly clear.

She sank to her knees beside him on his silly little stool. Her hands rose up to rest on his knees, stroking small circles along his thigh. He shivered but did not pull away from her. 

She knew before she lifted up on her knees that this would be different. As her mouth found his, warm but tentative under her lips, Lacey decided she didn’t care. 

Slanting her lips over his, she deepened the kiss. With a flicker of tongue along his lower lip, she teased his mouth open. He tilted his chin down, angling in a messy attempt to match her movements.

As he lips twisted in a smirk, she bit his lip gently and savored the meek whimper he made low in his throat. He tasted of burnt coffee and spearmint grass. Unable to help herself, she licked the bitten flesh as she drew away from him. 

At this distance, she could see him perfectly. His brown eyes were almost black, half hooded as he panted for breath. 

“Touch me,” she coached him, lifting his limp hands to her waist. “I won’t bite.”

“You just did,” he rasped but his hands tightened on her. At the sensation of his thumbs right below her bust line, Lacey let her eyes flutter shut for a moment. He seemed to understand, and those beautiful wonderful fingers started to trace the seam line of her dress, occasionally straying just above it to trace the curve of her breasts.

“When are you going to learn Rumple,” Lacey breathed, arching into his explorative touch. “I’m not a good person.”

He made a noise of disagreement, pulling his hands away from her. 

At the loss of contact, she surged back forward, capturing his mouth with hers to still the words. She didn’t want to hear about how beautiful she was or that she was wonderful. She had heard them before. Things men said to get her in bed, things men said to her in bed as they put all their fantasies and burdens on her. Not today, she promised herself as she lowered her hands to start to untie his shirt. 

He warmed to her ministrations, but he was still uncertain. His head remained perfectly motionless and his hands fluttered at his side. Once the tie of his shirt gave, she let one hand dip into the opening, tracing his collarbone up to cradle his neck. 

Soft tendrils of hair floated around her fingers, tickling her palm as she used the leverage to pull him tighter against her. The other she let trace the muscles of his clothed arm, tightening on his bicep when his hand came up to cup the back of her head delicately.

“I won’t break,” she chuckled into his open mouth, nipping the corner of it as she pulled away to explore the angle of his chin. The scruff and stubble along his face scratched her face in a pleasantly painful sensation. Used to the clean-cut townsmen or the bearded seafarers, Lacey reveled in the feeling. Dragging her cheek across his, she suckled on his pulse point just below his jaw. His hand tightened in her hair, before releasing suddenly.

“No, go on,” she murmured into his skin, licking the fluttering pulse point. Here he tasted of sweat and musk, it was a maddening combination. “You won’t hurt me.”

His hand came back to her hair, sliding down until it was clutching the curls at the nape of her neck. Her knees were starting to ache despite the petticoats between her and the hard floor, and she moved to the right to alleviate the pressure.

Rumplestitlskin, not realizing she was shifting, followed her and ended up toppling off the stool and on top of her. He efficiently knocked the breath out of her, even as he groaned as his bad leg hit the floor.

“Are you-“ she started in concern, trying not to laugh at the embarrassed pained look on his face. He was stuttering an apology, trying to get to his feet but she held him back down. She opted to take advantage of their new position, spreading herself alongside him as she spread his shirt open, untucking it from his breeches. 

Dipping her head to his collarbone, she nipped and sucked until he was flat on the ground, forgetting his goal to get to his feet. She liked him like this, Lacey decided as she circled his nipple with her forefinger. But then again she liked him washing dishes, eating apples and limping up the stairs. 

His hands raised back up to cup her shoulders, sliding up and down her arms as she bent her head to her exploration of his chest. He had a dusting of silver hair on his chest, tapering down and disappearing just above his rib cage. She traced the few scars he had from his first night at Port, ignoring his attempts to pull her back up to him. 

“Lacey,” he murmured fretfully, trying to sit back up again. She raised herself on her elbows to fix him with her most intimidating glare and was rewarded with a stunned silent glazed look as her other hand disappeared down into his breeches. 

“Shush,” she whispered, stretching forward to press a quick hungry kiss to his lips before turning back to explore the uncharted territory of her spinner’s pants. He was already hard, the bulge of him evident in the tight cut of his breeches. But she enjoyed the hot skin of his hips, tracing the ridges of his hip. He had put on some weight since staying with them but he was still wiry and compact. She liked that about him. He was barely taller than she was when she had on her tallest shoes and she liked the feeling of being able to look him in the eye. 

He buckled when her hand brushed against the tip of his cock. She murmured reassurances as she used her free hand to flick open the ties of his breeches, spreading them open to find him thick and ready for her. 

She was dimly aware of the humming noise she made, more aware of the way it caused his cock to twitch against his stomach. He was thick for his size, long enough for her to wrap both hands around and pump. The head was purple and throbbing in time to his ragged breathing, sac drawn up tight against his body. 

She traced the lines of his inner thighs, careful to not brush more than an inch of skin against him at a time. She knew he wouldn’t last long; it must have been months since his last lay and she felt a brief stab of resentment at the wife who had left him to go to sea. 

A brief expletive caused her to laugh as Rum thrust his hips up in an effort to make contact with her. His hands found her when she found a ticklish spot on his upper thigh, pulling her back up to him despite her attempt to sate her crowing curiosity about what he felt like. 

A sloppy but earnest kiss robbed her of her focus, his jagged teeth mimicking her earlier nips with more passion than skill. Lacey reveled in, arching against him distractedly as he moved down to her neck. 

Her hand was trapped between them and her other was tangled in his hair as he started to trace long lines down her throat. His tongue flexed and danced along her neck, insistent enough to cause her to wiggle against him.

His hand came up to cup her through her dress, thumb finding the hot skin above the lace and rolling t beneath his palm. She gasped a bit at that, nodding her approval when one finger disappeared beneath the bust line to explore underneath the shift.

His mouth stilled against her as he found her nipple, hard and tight. She rolled her head a bit to relish the rasping of his stubble against her throat, enjoying the way he brushed his fingertip softly over her while his other hand tightened almost painfully on her other breast.

Focused wholly on her chest, he ignored her breathy moans as he continued to tease her with his gentle touch. Finally, when her flesh felt too tight in the thickening air from the storm, she reached up to push her dress of her shoulders. He propped himself up on his elbow to watch her as she struggled out of the low cut bodice, untying the slip so her breasts feel heavy and free from their confinement. 

“Lords,” he whispered, eyes fixed on her. Lacey giggled, knowing he wasn’t really seeing her. 

“What’s the matter,” she teased, twitching her shoulders a bit to make her tits shake enticingly. “Never seen a naked woman before?”

“Not like you,” he answered back without hesitation. “Never like you.”  
His words caused something in her chest to constrict. Something tight and uncomfortable and dangerously close to the pain she had felt when she had told her father goodbye for the last time.

Swallowing, she reached over and forced him to sit upright, pulling his shirt off him. As his arms fell back to his side, hair static and curly in the humidity, Lacey came close to growling when the feeling in her chest increased at the sight of him, bemused and aroused before her.

His damnable brown eyes were thick with desire, his lips swollen and his neck raw from her bites. She felt the raw skin of her neck and face and knew she must be an equal sight. He must have agreed because he leaned in, with only a brief glance of confirmation before he latched his mouth to her left breast.

No stranger to the fixation men had for her tits, small and round as they were, Lacey was struck by the sudden jolt of his tongue lapping against the rosy bud. His earlier explorative gestures had her wet and uncomfortable already. 

“God, Rum,” she managed, letting her head fall back as his other hand secured her free breast, giving it a squeeze in time to his sucking and biting. His stubble itched and scratched the delicate skin of her chest but she pushed harder against him, trying to distract herself from the emotions building in her chest. How any woman left a man who paid this much reverent attention to his partner instead of just sticking it in and getting it over with was beyond her. 

He released her nipple with a pop, adjusting to his left as he tried to reach for the other one. She realized he was leaning on his bad leg and she rolled over, bringing him to rest on top of her. He eagerly complied, scooting down slightly and propping himself up on his elbows as he bent his head back down to his task. 

With a slow drag of his head, he let his mouth trace the underside of her breast before he circled her nipple with soft licks, never actually touching it before he placed open mouth kisses on the top of the mound. She twitched beneath him, arching her hips up to rub against his rib cage. 

She was unsure if he was ignorant of the effect he was having on her or if he was just returning her earlier teasing torture, but she finally could barely breath from the trembling heat rolling through her. With a desperate lunge of her forearm, she managed to reach his member, trapped between the two of them. 

His hips thrust into the tips of her fingers and he groaned into her skin as her fingers flicked the top of his cock. He looked shamefully up at her but she met his glance with a wicked grin.

“Come here,” she whispered and she was instantly rewarded with him moving up until her hand could easily reach him and her mouth could latch onto his with ease.

Fisting her palm around him, Lacey stroked him once or twice, feeling him contract hotly underneath her touch. He moaned into her mouth, thrusting his hips forward. His clumsy movement caused her own wrist to hit her core and she let out a surprised moan of her own as a burst of sensation flooded her system.

Encouraged by this, he did it again and when she released him, arching her back to try and get more contact, he actually had the audacity to chuckle into her ear.

“Speechless?” He whispered, changing the angle of his hips until his hipbone perfectly lined with her sex, pressing against her and then grinding until she kicked out beneath him. “That’s a first.”

“Shut up,” she moaned, grabbing a fistful of hair and dragging his mouth to hers. Something in the way she twitched underneath him as he ground against her seemed to awaken some kind of confidence in the brave little coward and his kiss became hungrier, more insistent until his tongue was tracing the roof of her mouth, nipping her tongue if she tried to push into his mouth. 

When his thrusts became more sporadic, Lacey recognized the symptoms of man on the edge. With a laugh, she wrapped her legs around him, stilling him against her. His breathing was ragged and hot against her face, hands flat on the floor as he balanced over her. When she was sure he was still, she reached down to pull her dress up until it pooled awkwardly around her middle. 

With a wordless tilt of her hips, she rubbed against his thigh, letting him feel her against him. He breathed out her name in a gasped choking noise that caused another laugh to bubble up from her throat. He caught her eye at this, at first unsure. 

“Can you feel how much I want you?” She asked him as she twisted to drag her sex back up his firm thigh. His hair tickled and twisted the hair between her sex and she relished in the rush of sensation at the heat of him pressed against her. 

He groaned out something else, something indecipherable before he pushed her hands out of the way. She stilled, letting him line up with her. A long moment drawn out as he slowly traced her slit with the head of his cock. He pulled himself upwards, letting the tip rub fitfully against that ball of nerves at the top of her sex. She whimpered at that, moving her hands up to his shoulders to clutch desperately as he repeated the gesture.

“I thought,” she panted as he repeated it for the third time. “I thought you didn’t know how to do this.”

“Never said that,” he answered, head bent down to watch himself pop up out of the thatch of curls before he repositioned himself at her entrance and started the process all over again. “Just needed the right teacher.”

“Maybe,” she managed to say despite the growing need pressing all rational thought out her mind. “Maybe you could teach me something one of these days. Make us even?”

“I only know how to spin,” he laughed. “I don’t exactly see you sitting at a spinning wheel.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Lacey gurgled as he twisted his hips to snap against her lower lips. “I could surprise you.”

“That,” he groaned low in his throat, closing his eyes as the sensations between them ricocheted higher. “That I don’t doubt.”

She reached up to grasp as his shoulders. “Enough pillow talk. Just do it already,” she pleaded with him. “I want you-“

Without preamble, he pushed inside her. She jerked harder against him, causing him to sink in farther than he meant and causing them both to moan louder than they had intended. A roll of thunder answered them and then a flash of lighting followed, lighting up his face. 

He had a look of wonder on his face, brows knit in concentration and mouth open in disbelief. Lacey didn’t care to know what her face looked like as he contracted himself inside her, causing a thousand different sensations to go rolling through her. She shuddered despite herself, her nipples rubbing against his chest and causing him to contract again.

“I’m not going to last long,” he warned her, pushing himself back up on his elbows. She felt the shaking of his body through her own quaking, and knew it had nothing to do with shyness this time.

She didn’t answer him, simply tilted her hips up to rub her clit against him. As soon as she moved, he seemed to lose any and all trace of control. He thrust forward with three or four sharp jerks, shallow motions that let her rub herself against him. He seemed lost in his own world; eyes squeezed shut as he pulled back, almost coming entirely out of her before thrusting forward again.

Lacey had plenty of partners. She had been with little men, big men, fat men and nondescript men and she knew the different feelings of a man inside her. This man though, felt different. He stretched her out to just a point where every thrust sent tingles into her very core, her usual practice ways of rolling her hips and practiced moans and groans gone as she frantically tried to match his movements. He had no rhythm to speak of, going from those short shallow thrusts that rubbed her sex against his stomach to the long and slow pushes that caused her to cry out, tightening and relaxing as she came dangerously close to the edge.

Part of her wondered how he was managing this with his bad leg, when she realized his odd pattern was probably due to the pain in his leg. When he buried himself back inside her, she raised her legs around his hips, trapping him inside her. He stilled, looking up at her in confusion before she gently tilted them to the side. He followed her, uncertain but too far-gone to question her. 

He twitched again inside her and Lacey rolled on top of him, careful to keep him inside her. She was already swollen from arousal. He lay below her, breathing heavily as she placed one hand gently on his shoulder and the other on his chest. The sky outside was black as pitch, the only light coming from the occasionally green clouds and the lighting flashing. She couldn’t see anything but the sky from their current position but she was more interested in what was below her anyway. 

Rising up on her knees, she slid up his length as she locked eyes with him. She was rewarded with his eyes rolling back in his head as she slowly sank back down on him with a moan of her own. She repeated the slow slide, leaning down to deepen the angle as her legs tightened.

At this angle, his cock was rubbing madly along her clit. She raised herself and sank back down, slightly faster this time as the head of his member hit a sensitive spot deep inside her. She gasped at this, and his hands rose to clench her hips, begging her with intense pressure to keep going.

She obliged him; rising back up and plunging back down, letting him slip deeper inside her. An intense primal urge in her own blood caused her to swivel her hips slightly, rubbing her lips against the base of him. It proved effective, causing her to tighten around him, dangerously close to her own orgasm. Sensing it, he titled his own hips up, helping her rise up and fall by matching her with his own weak thrusts. 

She bobbed up and down, sinking back onto him with a moan and a whimper as one of his hands reached up to pinch her nipple. He twisted and rolled it between his fingers, his careful and gentle side forgotten as she rode him harder and harder. His fingers tightened on her hip, guiding her to match his thrusts or to guide him, she wasn’t sure.

All she knew was she had a building need tightening in her core. The feeling of him between her thighs was empowering, the way he was breathing heavily made her feel all powerful and for the first time since her first few fumbles in the haystack, Lacey felt alive. 

She ground down on him again; twisting her hips in a small circle as she tried to find the pressure she needed to slip over the edge. As she lost any semblance of pattern and started to grind helplessly against him, he tried to help her with a brief fumbling at her breast. Then, he tried to still her motions by placing a hand at the base of her legs. But when he brushed against her just as she ground down at just the right angle, Lacey felt herself shatter apart. With a cry, she pushed down on him, feeling his cock as her walls constricted around him, her head fell back as stars erupted in the black behind her eyes. Just as she started to come back down to earth, Rumplestitlskin loosened his grip on her, pushing her off him without preamble.

“Rumple!” Lacey yelped pathetically. She was throbbing, sex dripping beneath her even as her eyes fixed on his pulsing member he was fisting frantically. 

“About to come,” he gritted out, arm working madly as he worked himself. For a second, Lacey watched memorized, her core twitching to her heartbeat as she watched him touching himself.

Then, she pushed his hand out of the way, ignoring his cry. With a twist of her right hand around his cock, she slipped him into her mouth. She felt his groan through the reverberation of his cock as she slid her lips over the head, teasing the sensitive underside with her tongue before widening her mouth and sliding back down the length of him.

His hands buried themselves in her hair, one tightening almost painfully as the other bobbed her head into the rhythm he needed. Lacey felt a familiar panic at the sensation, remembering the number of men who had made her gag and nearly choked her with their forceful thrusts but she calmed when he cried out as her free hand found his sac.

She rolled his balls in her fingers, humming happily as his hands fell away to clutch at the floor beneath him as he lifted his hips upwards to meet her lips. Letting her tongue dart out, she hollowed her cheeks and sucked as she pumped him, letting her hand twist in the slickness of her salvia.

It was the fourth thrust with her hands on his sac that caused him to go utterly still. His legs tightened beside her and Lacey twisted her tongue tighter around his head, just as the warm spurt of cum hit the roof of her mouth. 

Pleased in a ridiculous way that she didn’t care to decipher, Lacey continued to slowly slide her tongue along his shaft. Spurts of hot warm semen continued to come from his twitching cock and she hummed her approval when he finally stilled. His hands fell from her hair as she licked him clean, biting her lip as she raised her head to survey her conquest.

He lay still, chest rising and falling just as the splash of rain started against the roof. Turning to survey the storm from the window, Lacey watched as droplets burst and rolled down the windowpane, growing louder as the rain intensified.

Due to her distraction, she was surprised when she felt his fingers curl around her wrist. Looking back down, she found him pulling her down to him. For a second, she almost let herself but then she remembered her real reason behind coming up here. If she lay down with him on the floor, if she let herself fall asleep beside him in the thunderstorm until it was time to go to work, she would never be able to let him go.

She used her free hand to pluck his fingers from her wrist, pulling her dress back up to her shoulders, feeling the stiffness between her legs as she rolled to her feet. As she stood, she felt a rush of moisture trickling down her leg and she shook out her skirts, raising a hand to fix her hair.

She didn’t look down at him. She didn’t need to. 

“Lacey?”

“Doc Whale says you have a clean bill of health. You’re healthy enough to finally go home,” she said tonelessly. “I came up to tell you.”

Silence followed this proclamation. 

“The Jolly Roger was spotted off the coast earlier today. They’ll probably anchor tomorrow when the storm breaks and they’ll come here as usual to trade.” She kept her gaze on the storm, watching as the flags across the street flapped helplessly with the wind. There was no one on the streets. The Pirate’s Purse would be slow tonight. “You better catch the midnight carriage out of town. It’ll take you as far as Faeries Hollow, and you can be home before the week’s end.”

She let herself out of the attic. 

She didn’t look back.

\--

“Lacey! Another round for me friends!”

Without missing a beat, Lacey found herself pouring the requested ales. Jones and his Pirate Queen were celebrating their marriage, reveling in the Pirates Purse for the seventh night in a row. 

It had been over six months since she had last seen the Pirate Queen’s first husband, watching him limp out into the storm and onto the carriage that would take him away from here forever. 

Smalls had stood beside her at the window. “You could go with him,” he had said in the silence of the storm’s pause. 

“No, I can’t,” she had replied before turning away and disappearing into her room. Smalls hadn’t said a word about the bender she went on that night, simply leaving a plate of toast and a pitcher of water at her door in the morning. 

She had told him to go and he had gone. Back to his son and his village and his life where he was a widower and a spinner. And she had gone back to being a barmaid. 

\--

The last lesson Lacey learned from life was it had a sense of humor. 

As she lay on her sickbed, half delirious with fever from the Sickness going around Port like Death itself, she felt a presence in the room. 

Twisting her head, sticky with perspiration as a thunderstorm rolled into the town, she saw a dark hooded figure in the darkness of the corner of her room. She coughed, rolling onto her back.

“About time,” she rasped. “Been waiting for you.”

A chiding noise of disapproval echoed in the room just as thunder crashed against the panes, rattling them in their sills. “How is that, dearie?”

“Half the town dead. Surprised it took you this long to get to me.”

“Who do you think I am, dearie?” Came the sniggering response. “Death?”

“Aren’t you?” Lacey managed.

“Not quite.”

“Then, get the hell out of my room and go find him for me,” Lacey growled. Another coughing fit racked her body, causing her to tighten up as blood speckled her pillow. 

Heavy steps signaled the stranger was beside her bed. Lacey opened her jaundiced eyes to find a scaled monstrosity staring down at her with glowing golden eyes, curly hair peeking out from his hood as he raised clawed hands to wiggle them at her in glee.

“Bossy,” it giggled at her. 

“Dying,” she corrected him as she studied him. “Which explains why I’m having a hallucination of a monster in my room.”

“I’m very much real, dearie,” he snickered again. 

“Hmm,” she managed, letting her eyes fall shut again. He stood silent besides her, watching her until she opened one eye blearily to ask, “What are you staring at? Never seen a dying woman before?”

“Not like you, dearie. Never like you.”

Memories of another thunderstorm flooded her feverish mind and Lacey found herself focusing, staring past the deformities and scales until she could see it. 

“Rumple?”

“In the flesh,” he answered nastily. “Or scales, I suppose.”

“You’ve changed,” she managed to get out, feeling a growing weariness in her head that threatened to silence her before she could say what she needed to.

“Oh, you could say that!” He snorted, waving his hand in an obscene gesture. Lacey closed her eyes, blocking him out as she conjured up the image of her spinner in her mind.

“I missed you,” she whispered.

“Liar,” he snarled. 

“No,” Lacey tossed her head, feeling a tear eke out despite her attempt to choke it back. “I did. But it doesn’t matter now. It’s too late anyways.”

“I would say, you’re about one foot in the grave and the other in hell, Lacey. What was it? The Pox? Or the Plague?”

“The Sickness,” Lacey managed. “Jones and his crew brought it in with them. The Pirate Queen sent her infected to all the bars if we didn’t pay up. Smalls went within a week, I managed a bit longer.”

She opened her eyes to find him staring down at her in displeasure. “You’re ruining this for me,” he told her pettily. 

“That’s me,” Lacey coughed as she chuckled. “Tell me, what happened to Bae?”

A hiss followed her question, he snarled down at her, hood slipping off his head as he leaned down into her face to snarl at her. His beautiful jagged teeth were yellow and green now, sharper and fiercer than the ones that had left marks on her throat.  
“As if you care!”

Lacey lifted up on shaking hand, letting it rest against the familiar face, finding comfort in it even as distorted by hate as it now was. “Of course I care,” Lacey told him. “I cared enough to send you back to him instead of keeping you here with me.”

He stilled, eyes searching hers before he pulled away and back into the darkness. 

“Oh, Rum,” she chortled to herself, letting her hand fall down beside the bed. “Look at us. I tried to be more like you, helping without motive, kind without reason and all it got me was a death sentence.”

“And there you are,” she continued weakly, feeling tears leaking down her cheeks. “Twisted by hatred and self loathing into a monster. I’m sorry, Rum. I’m so sorry.”

“The dying are always sorry.”

“Maybe,” she conceded fitfully as her breath started to come out more and more raggedly. “But I wish it was different. I wish I had gone to your village instead of Port. I wish I had begged you to take me with you that night. I wish I had gone after you.”

“Enough,” came the curt reply. 

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” Lacey exhaled slowly, feeling the slowing of her pulse as a weariness started to overcome her. “But I always hoped to tell you…”

“What?” He snapped, stepping towards her. 

“I…. I learned how to spin,” she giggled, gesturing weakly towards the corner. She caught his eye with her glassy blue ones and saw for a brief minute, a flicker of her brave little coward behind the monster’s eyes. “Surprise…”

And then, with one last giggle, Lacey fell silent as her hand dropped back down to rest on the floor.

Another rumble of thunder crashed and rattled the empty building, the large red skull on the outside of the Pirate’s Purse a warning that the Sickness had taken hold here and warning people away. 

Inside, the Dark One, a man once known as Rumplestitlskin, stood staring into the corner where a spinning wheel stood, surrounded by piles and piles of lace yarn. 

\--


	2. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, this is a second chapter, because I'm worried some of you might have felt the ending as it was, was perfect. So, still a one- shot, just separated in case someone wants a different kind of ending.

The Dark One knew how to recognize a desperate soul. 

Over the centuries, he had seen them all. The good hearted and black hearted, it made little difference in the long run. Both would sacrifice everything they held dear to save their own precious little hides. 

“We implore you, will you not come to our aid, Dark One?”

Curling his lip back to expose his canines, the all-powerful wizard let out a chortle that echoed in the eerily silent throne room. “Well, that depends,” he trilled, raising his hand under the guise of checking his claws. A stifled gasp from the back of the room and the way the portly noble before him paled told him the little display had done its job, installing the proper amount of terror. 

They all were incredibly predictable. 

“Anything you desire,” the older noble was saying. “Name your price.”

Resisting the urge to sigh, he opted instead to give a shrill little giggle. Little trick he had learned from a positively insane troll over in the Wetlands, surprisingly effective in installing unease. To complete the effect, he scrunched his nose up at the assembled crowd. They shrank back from him. Safety in numbers indeed. They were sheep, the lot of them. “Let’s see,” he sang, bobbing his head for added effect. 

This was just another kingdom in the path of the ever-advancing ogres. Another desperate noble man who would offer him things he did not need. Everyone was in such a hurry to offer up their wealth and lands. Those were things men desired. Not the Dark One, not the omnipotent Rumplestitlskin. 

After centuries of life, he had long grown out of his base desires for power, glory and comfort. Honestly, he wouldn’t even bother helping them if he wasn’t still holding a wee bit of a grudge against the ogres for their part in his little humiliation so many eons ago. He had been rather put out when he had learned all magic had a price. Meant he had to have others pay the price instead. Killing ogres was terribly soothing but he had quickly learned the price for his little fun was more than he was willing to pay.

That’s where these little desperate fools came in handy.

“I’ll help you,” he finally agreed with a long-suffering sigh. His sharp hearing caught the few sighs of reliefs and also the few dark mutterings that quickly pattered out as he swung his golden eyes towards them. “For a price.”

The noble looked perturbed for a moment. “Of course,” he said carefully. “We have caverns of gold and jewels-“

“Mm,” he pretended to consider. “That’s not really very tempting, seeing as how I make gold…” 

“Then land. We have acres of uncharted-“

“I have plenty of that already,” he pointed out, raising the same hand in the air dramatically. 

He hated this part. This would go on for at least a quarter of an hour before he finally would have to suggest perhaps they might have just a little magical heirloom or something like that hidden in their royal vaults.

Honestly, as if he would bother to come here at all if they didn’t have something he wanted. He did have better things to do with his time than deal with mortals. As the nobles shouted out suggestions, he refused them all, growing increasingly bored even as he giggled and trilled at their antics. 

Until-

“Perhaps our savior would prefer something less common?” The growingly purple head noble turned sharply, revealing just beyond him a small slip of a girl. The entire room was growing louder as they realized what she was suggesting. She was glaring at the entire assemblage, asking them hotly, “Would you all sacrifice the entire kingdom just to hold on to the Mirror of Eir?” Her father was practically rushing her out of the throne room, forgetting all etiquette in his haste.

In all the confusion, no one noticed the very odd look that crossed over the Dark One’s face like a thunderbolt. His earlier interest in the Mirror of Eir, rumored to be able to show one their heart’s truest desire, evaporated as he stared at the newcomer.

Draped in golden threads, the young lady looked every inch a princess. Her dark chestnut curls came cascading down over her bare shoulder, jewel shining impressively but demurely from her neck and ears. Impressive, yes, but not as impressive as her blue eyes, twinkling like sapphire gems in the torchlight.

Her face was porcelain, elfin in its details with red lips thinned in determination and rosy cheeks burning pink with a combination of nervousness and pride. 

Some people intercepted the lord and his daughter, gesturing wildly as they chattered like monkeys. She stood utterly still, her face upturned lovingly to her father. 

It was her. From the way she held her head to the sound of her voice, the girl before him was the very picture of the woman he had lost so many lifetimes ago. 

Magic had no power over the dead. And yet- here she stood. His Lacey reborn into the life of a lady, her voice softened and inflected, her posture poised and practiced, much younger than when he had first met her in the city of Port but he knew her. 

And in that realization, everything was perfectly clear. 

“My price…is her.”

Predictably, the entire room erupted into male voices as some quickly supported the notion while others seem horrified at the sheer thought of it. The head noble, Maurice or something ridiculous like that, seemed to shrink as he turned his tired eyes back to the throne where he perched.

“No,” he said with a shake of his head. 

“The young lady is engaged…to me,” said some young buck, striding forward to stand between the throne and the lady. 

Squashing the impulse to turn the handsome princeling into a toad, Rumplestitlskin hopped down from the throne. He resisted the urge to reach out and touch her. This woman despite being an exact mirror image of the woman from his mortal life did not know him. 

A flash of Lacey’s eyes, glassy and feverish, floated before him just as he heard her voice, “You’ve changed….”

So, too had she. The spinner had loved Lacey for her beauty and her fire, her passion and her strength. Gazing at the soft and untested female before him, he doubted such a protected little princess could possibly-

“I will go with him.”

“I forbid it, Belle!”

He watched in silent reverence as the girl whipped around to face her fiancée, eyes blazing in defiance as she decreed, “No one decides my fate but me! I shall go.”

“It’s forever, dearie,” he told her, breath bated as he watched her shine. She lifted her head, chin sticking out proudly and he felt the blackness in his chest constrict at the sight of her. He knew exactly how she would laugh and how she would taste if he dared to kiss her. 

“My family, my friends,” she was looking around the room as a blush rose up her neck. “Will they all live?”

“You have my word,” he said with a deep bow. It didn’t matter if she agreed; he would go to the ends of the world for her. If she asked, he would get on his knees. Centuries of regret, determination to find Bae to apologize, to make it up to the one person left that had known and cared for him before this curse, all of it had led him here. 

A second chance…

But luckily for him, the little one had no idea of her power. 

“Then you have mine. I will go, with you, forever.” 

Standing up, he crowed, “Deal!” 

Large blue eyes, the color of the true sea, deep and rich, blinked rapidly as if to pull back the tears. Even as the hated part of him had relished in the fear and chaos of his power, a deeper part of him, one long silent, had always despaired that Lacey had never seen the true color of the sea. She had died believing it be dirty brown and green. 

Perhaps he would be able to show this…this Belle. Had anyone ever told her that her eyes were the color of the ocean? Or had they just compared it to the sky after the rain or the dull gems that lacked the life that blazed from her like candlelight? 

Her father was crying out, forbidding her to go but the little brave fool was approaching him, keeping his gaze. He offered her his arm and she took it gingerly. She turned back to them all, to get one last look he supposed, saying, “Father,” she said tenderly. Then, with a different tone, one of almost exasperation, she stated, “Gaston… it’s been decided.”

“You know, she’s right,” he chortled even as the feel of her arm, through his layers of leather and scales caused his entire world to narrow to just that one sensation. “The deal is struck.”

“Oh!” he remembered belatedly, turning back to them. He did have a reputation to protect after all. “Congratulations on your little war!”

And then, in a swirl of maroon smoke, billowing up to the ceiling, Rumplestitlskin and the Lady Belle disappeared from the throne room. 

Over the next few days, stories told of the beast stealing the beauty would pass into legend. And in the infamous Dark Castle, feared by all the realm, a young woman who had no idea she once had once upon a time lived as a simple farmer’s daughter, a barmaid and died a selfless death as a hero, stood upon a ladder and fought to open the curtains.

And below her, face upturned in hopeful wonder, stood a monster who was getting his very own second chance as he relearned how to be a man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Confession: Even as I hit publish, I knew that the above would happen. It was a headcanon, one I decided to keep to myself. Until you all came in like beautiful shiny disco wrecking balls with feels in your hands and tears in your eyes.
> 
> Here's to you guys.
> 
> Thanks for reading.

**Author's Note:**

> No beta and this was written over some fevered days after my house was broken into, my internet cut because they thought it was the alarm, and having all nighters out with friends.
> 
> I blame Prissy for everything. If you like it, blame prissy. If you don't like it, blame Prissy.  
> (but if you are rude to my Prissy, i will end you.)
> 
> EDIT- Ok, gang. I added the epilogue. I opted to add it as a different chapter, in case some of you like this ending just fine and don't want to read an epilogue. This story is still considered a one-shot, just this way people can choose their endings.


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